Blair nodded.
"Yes. He was so anxious to see you, that I asked him to come down with me. Shall I tell you why I did so?"
"Yes," said Margaret. A strange feeling, scarcely of dread—how could it be?—had crept over her. "Tell me everything."
"Everything!" he repeated emphatically. "From this moment I will not have a thought you shall not share, dearest. Well, then, I didn't know what your answer would be, Madge, and I felt so afraid of myself; I know what a stupid idiot I am when I want to say anything and can't, that I brought him to plead for me if it should be necessary."
"It was not necessary," she murmured, and he kissed her hand.
"He held out at first, and wouldn't hear of coming, but I persuaded him at last; poor old Austin can't refuse me anything, and so he came with me. He is waiting at the stile, in case you will condescend to see him."
Margaret shrank a little. She could not guess that though Lord Blair fully believed that it was he who had persuaded Austin Ambrose to come against his will, it had really been Austin's own suggestion artfully made.
"I will do as you wish, Blair," she said. "Yes," she added quickly, "I will see him."
After all, she could not even seem to be cold to her lover's closest friend!
Blair sprung to his feet.